“He’s suspended,” Miller said.
“I heard he broke Frankie’s nose.”
“You heard right. I wasn’t feeling up to the job.”
My hand on his arm tightened. “Were your numbers low? Again? Maybe you should talk to your endocrinologist. Or what about your PCV? How is that working out?”
“It’s not.”
“What does that mean?”
He gently extracted his arm from my grip. “Stop worrying about me, Vi. Please. Just…stop.”
“I can’t. I can never stop caring about you. You’re my best friend.”
The bell rang, and he stared at me through it, then looked away. “I gotta get to class.”
“Miller, talk to me. Please.”
The fight went out of him; his shoulders dropped. His deep, gravelly voice sounded even rougher. “My mom has a new boyfriend.”
“Oh.” My heart sank at the subtext imbedded in those words. “Is he…bad?”
“Remains to be seen how bad, but yeah. The PCV, Marco, came over the other day. Chet made a complete ass of himself. It was fucking humiliating. So I told the guy not to come back.”
“Miller, no. You need the help.”
“I’ll be fine. And I don’t want to talk about it, Vi.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Okay. I’m sorry you have to put up with that. Him.”
His eyes met mine and the hard walls came down a little, like they only did for me. He sighed, ran a hand through his longish brown hair. “I’m sorry for being a dick, but it’s just what I’ve been dealing with.”
Wordlessly, I hugged him tight. He leaned into me, let me hold him, but his hands were light on my back as if it burned him to touch me.
“Mr. Stratton? Miss McNamara?” Over Miller’s shoulder, Vice Principal Chouder was tapping his watch. “You’re both late.”
Miller pulled back, shouldered his bag, his gaze anywhere but on me.
“See you later?” I asked.
I wanted to ask if he’d come over that night, like I had a thousand times in four years. But it felt wrong. Everything between us now felt all wrong.
“Yeah, see you, Vi,” he said and quickly walked away.
In History class that day, I sat next to Shiloh as usual. Mr. Baskin called roll.
“Watson?”
“Here.”
“Wentz?” A silence followed, and then Baskin, a heavyset guy with a graying beard, muttered to himself. “Oh, that’s right. Suspended.”
He made a check in his roll book, then restarted the movie on the whiteboard that we’d begun last class: a documentary on the Russian revolution.
When the classroom was dark and the documentary rolling, Shiloh leaned into me, whispering, “Okay, Miss Friends-with-TMZ. Who is this new guy who keeps not showing up?”
“Ronan Wentz,” I whispered back. “He’s suspended for punching Frankie Dowd. Broke his nose.”